Every November, there's one Thursday when planes wait on the runway and offices open late. Nobody is on strike. It's 수능 day, the biggest exam of a Korean student's life, and the whole country adjusts around it. This year it falls on Thursday, November 19th. Here are the words you'll hear in the news that week.

수능

수능 is short for 대학수학능력시험, the national college entrance exam. 대학 is college, 수학능력 is the ability to study, and 시험 is a test. The exam takes most of the day, running from about 8:40 in the morning to 5:45 in the evening, and more than 550,000 people sit for it this year at more than a thousand test sites across the country. Because so much rides on a single day, it gets treated as a national event.

"다음 주 목요일이 수능이에요." — The 수능 is next Thursday.

"수능은 일 년에 한 번만 있어요." — The 수능 only happens once a year.

수험생

수험생 is a person taking an exam. 수험 means "to take an exam" and 생 means "student." You'll see it most in the news around this time of year, and also at home, where a family with a 수험생 starts adjusting everything from meals to noise levels.

"우리 언니가 수험생이에요." — My older sister is a 수험생.

"수험생이 있어서 집이 조용해요." — The house is quiet because there's a 수험생.

수능날

The government asks offices and companies to start work at 10 a.m. or later on exam day, so that the roads and subways are free for students in the morning. The subways in the Seoul area also run extra trains for the students' rush hour, and cars are kept out of the area within 200 meters of each test site.

The most surprising rule is for the English listening section, which runs for about 25 minutes in the afternoon. During that time, airplanes and helicopters adjust their takeoff and landing times, and the military pauses things like cannon fire and tank movement, so that nothing makes noise near the test sites. Buses and trains nearby are also asked to slow down and avoid honking. Few foreigners expect that a listening test can reschedule flights.

"수능날에는 출근 시간이 늦어져요." — On 수능 day, work starts later.

"듣기 시험 때는 비행기도 멈춰요." — During the listening test, even the planes stop.

붙다 and 떨어지다

붙다 means "to stick," and in the context of exams it also means "to pass." 떨어지다 means "to fall," and it also means "to fail." If you want to wish someone luck, you give them something that sticks, hoping they will 붙다.

That's why the classic 수능 gifts are 엿 (a hard, sticky candy) and 찹쌀떡 (chewy glutinous rice cake). In the earlier days of Korean entrance exams, the stickiness was the whole message: stick to the school you applied for. When the 수능 started in the 1990s, new gifts joined in. 포크 means you "pick" the right answers (찍다), and 휴지 means the problems will 풀리다, "come loose," the way tissue unrolls. Today, many students prefer practical gifts instead, like heat packs and analog watches, but 엿 and 찹쌀떡 still show up. And there are words you try not to say near a 수험생, like 떨어지다 and 미끄러지다. Some families even skip 미역국 that morning, because 미역 is slippery. One more warning: 엿 먹어라 is a rude insult in Korean, so when you talk about the gift, say 엿을 선물하다 and never 엿 먹이다.

"수능 전날 친구에게 엿을 선물했어요." — The day before the 수능, I gave my friend 엿 as a gift.

"시험에 떨어질까 봐 걱정돼요." — I'm worried I'll fail the exam.

합격

합격 means passing an exam or being accepted. 합 means "to fit" and 격 means "standard," so you've met the standard. The verb is 합격하다, and the opposite is 불합격. The word isn't only for the 수능. You'll use it for driving tests and job interviews. In the weeks after the exam, 합격 is the word that can appear on the screen of 수험생.

"대학교에 합격했어요!" — I got into college! "합격을 축하해요." — Congratulations on passing.

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